


to punctuate

by yomigae



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen, Side Kaidoh/Momo, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26333455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yomigae/pseuds/yomigae
Summary: Momo’s chest rumbled like a bat cave with all the laughter he’d tried to hold in. He rubbed tears out of his eyes. "Girls, boys, young, old, it’s useless," he said."Only thing that can make him smile is tennis. And like…cats."
Relationships: Echizen Ryouma/Kikumaru Eiji
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	to punctuate

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in December 2016, when I was 19. These sentiments feel very foreign to me now even as I embark on my nth tenipuri rewatch, but they remain very precious nonetheless. I don't think I'll ever be able to write like this again, with so much life and vivacity and magic, but that's okay. Like Eiji comes to learn--there's no use in trying to stop time. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll see the world colorfully like this again.
> 
> There's a lot of love behind this ship, more than I imagined considering I didn't ship this when I wrote it. Hope you find it just as sweet. 
> 
> Enjoy!

In the morning, Eiji shows up to practice with his own polaroid camera. He bounds to Fuji’s side first thing, presenting his equipment.

"Fujiko! Teach me how you snap."

Eiji says he wants a new hobby. Fuji is glad to help, so Eiji slips the instruction sheet back into the box. Some of the regulars watch from the court, mildly interested. Polaroid isn’t the best practice material, but Eiji seems like the impatient type, and Fuji gives a brief lesson on the dials, lighting and exposure, and to never ever ever open up the back cover, or the film will go to waste.

Eiji nods along. Over in the corner, Momoshiro is suspicious. He rotates his ankles with silent assessment. Echizen is across the net, hopping the ball on a racket flipping like a pancake.

Eiji looks around through the lens until he looks up to Tezuka’s hovering face, and Tezuka teaches them how he snaps by assigning 30 laps.

Momoshiro is still suspicious.

-

Momo was the first one to know. “It’s just a little crush!” Kikumaru insisted. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too. Everybody has to feel it. Echizen is just so cute.”

Across the table, Momoshiro sat and contemplated how he should respond. Should he swallow his burger, or…he swallowed his burger. He could laugh, or choke, but he didn’t out of sympathy. Eiji was desperate, waiting for him to put his burger down faster…wipe his hands faster…lick his teeth faster…he reached into his collar and pulled out a ring. It was strung roughly with hemp string. It was a rather thin ring, simple with nothing engraved. “I’m bound,” he said, with a proud smirk.

Eiji would’ve asked, in fact he was kind of dying to, but he did just out himself to one of least trustworthy conmen on the team, but he supposed this kind of people was the least dangerous too. Fuji would never tease you for any secret he got hold of, but he would actually try to do something about it, and Eiji had already decided this Echizen thing was just a little tickle, and it was going absolutely nowhere.

"That might as well be a good decision." Momo’s chest rumbled like a bat cave with all the laughter he’d tried to hold in. He rubbed tears out of his eyes. "Girls, boys, young, old, it’s useless," he said.

"Only thing that can make him smile is tennis. And like…cats."

-

"Ochibi, smile for the camera!"

Eiji takes about the 8th picture of a blurry hand.

"Damn it, kiddo! Film is expensive."

Echizen lets him mumble. Eiji follows him into the clubroom, raising his camera again, and Echizen looks over lifting his half stripped shirt like he dares him. Eiji gives up for the day, collects his spoils from a pile in his cubby and heads home.

Of course the secret to subtlety is to take pictures of everybody. And then you sift, and arrive at what is relevant through elimination. He loves Fuji, but the twenty pictures of him smiling mean nothing to him. What he comes through with is a batch of shots of Echizen Ryoma’s grimace, each a different timbre of “I hate you right now please go away”. Even his stance looks so similar that he might as well have taken these shots from a green screen. Eiji thinks photography is hard, but making Echizen smile is harder.

"Why don’t you experiment on someone else?"

"You’re the little superstar here, Ochibi! These candids will be worth a lot in the future."

"Why not Buchou, then?" He grumbled. "He’s going pro, too."

Eiji had a feeling that was already covered. After all, he learned from watching Fuji herd Class 1 students for group photos “for the grad album” and remove squares of Tezuka out with X-acto knives. “Say cheese,” he’d instruct, demonstrating by smiling. Tezuka never did. Eiji was sure Tezuka always knew exactly what Fuji was up to. He had a spectacular tenacity for running away from his boyfriend.

Eiji catches him in the cafeteria picking up drinks for himself and Momo.

"How about you do me a favor, too, Ochibi-chan?" He says with his camera in his face.

Ryoma’s holding two cans of dripping cold Ponta, and he considers sandwiching Eiji-senpai’s stupid face between them and running.

"You keep calling me Chibi Chibi, but senpai you haven’t grown a day since you were fifteen. No, _twelve_. JUU-NI.”

The flash goes off on the “ni”, and Echizen’s face is right up in the lens, and you can only see one and a half nostrils and his bared canines clenched in aggravation. Eiji think’s it’s cute. Fuji thinks he’s _mada mada dane?_ Eiji laughs about it and scratches his neck until slowly the words start to sink in.

It’s kinda true. Ryoma’s 16 now—he grows at a rate that makes Nanjiroh proud every time he misjudges the distance of his reach. Like when he knocks cups off the breakfast table, or when he smashes a high lob, or stubs his toe on the stairs. Ryoma’s been around the circuits since he was 12, and he’d probably grown up too fast since then. These days, he was getting all the right places with his eyes closed.

Eiji’s stubbornly trying to halt time. “You used to be so much cuter,” he’d said, and then it felt a bit overused in his mouth. Eiji was refusing to move forward. One more picture, one more glance. One more pat on the back. The world was going to be a little scary without his friends by his side, without a partner behind his back, without these white lines to lay down the boundaries, where all he had to do was play within them. Ryoma’s older and braver: he knows and he dares, and maybe recklessness isn’t just granted by childhood. Eiji’s admits defeat: he’s been sneaking around his feelings. Eiji has been careless.

He stashes the pictures in a mint box for the night. Kaidoh, Fuji, Momo, the team. They make him sad a little.

-

He’s getting there, but for the time being he’s gonna need a little help.

"Calling up on partner," he whimpers in greeting.

"Eiji? What’s the matter?"

"Love troubles." He admits miserably, vowels a closed mouth mumble. Oishi can hear his pout. He makes a weird sound with his throat in shock, and no doubt he must be blushing on the other end. Oishi is so simple. Eiji laughs.

"Just kidding! Hehe, don’t worry. I just have a little crush on Echizen."

It’s a few years off his life, but thankfully Oishi is persistent enough to recover.

"What are you thinking of doing about it?" He asks eventually.

"Do you think I have to? Do something about it, I mean?"

"Well…"

Eiji maybe would have done something about it if the situation was different, but he could just be telling himself that. Maybe if they had more time he still wouldn’t have done anything about it, the way he doesn’t do anything about a few of the girls he’s guiltily known have liked him for quite some years. He wished it was grade school, where liking people was simpler: he only wanted to hold Ryoma’s hand. He wanted to lean his chin on top of his bony shoulder and complain about it. He wanted to ruffle his hair, and kiss his cute little forehead, but he isn’t twelve years old anymore.

"Oishi…do you think I’m being a wussy?"

Now with graduation so near, it was a little sore in his chest, but Eiji knew at this time he could only wait for it to go away. But before it did, before Ryoma did…

"I don’t want to be seen as a child anymore, Oishi. Not by Ochibi, not by anybody."

It takes Oishi a while to respond, but he sounds warm when he does.

"Believe it or not, Eiji, no one ever did. We were just waiting for you to come around, that’s all."

-

It’s New Year’s. After the practice match with Fudomine at the street courts, Eiji spins Echizen around by the hood of his blue pullover. Ryoma almost slips on the thin snow. “To celebrate, you are now going on a date with me, Ochibi!”

"Huh? Why me? Why not Oishi senpai?" Or anyone else.

"Tezuka invited Oishi’s family to mountain climb for the weekend, Fuji’s at home waiting for Yuuta to come home, and Momo’s off on his date with Ann-chan—"

"Ann?" Inui brushes by. In the frost of the air he’s visibly radiating heat. Sweat rolls off his forearm. He stares at Eiji, and from somewhere in the oncoming night a flash of light gleams on the lenses of his glasses. He grins slowly, then leaves without another word.

Eiji puffs out his cheeks and tries again. “I’ll return you back before the countdown, I promise!”

Ryoma contemplates New Year’s with his father.

"Only if you swear not to take pictures"

-

They venture, by design or mistake, into an amusement park, and Eiji learns Ryoma’s still a kid at heart. They eat cat shaped popsicles, scream down the drop of the Whirlwind Whipper, and Ryoma challenges the balloon pop clerk with a racket and a ball that he could take the grand prize from 20 meters behind the yellow line. Ryoma whines like a kid when he has to alternate piggybacking and bridal styling the five foot Rilakkuma while Eiji shoulders his tennis bag. He only notices it when it bumps into the small of his back as they walk, the bulge of his confiscated camera. He fishes it out of the side pocket, when they’re here by the overpass of the river, and they settle on the bank in the grass and wait. The local high school kids organized a small firework party. Towels are laid, and people sit waiting, fanned out in the shape of an amphitheatre around a bonfire down the hill, where a guitar player sits and strums soft tunes.

Eiji’s uncapping his camera when Ryoma’s arm knocks into his and pats him frantically, grabbing his wrist. The camera falls on the grass beside him, but Ryoma doesn’t care, pointing across the river at something.

"Look over there, right there." He pulls Eiji closer. Eiji squints. "Isn’t that Momo-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai?"

Eiji squawks at them. Ryoma laughs, eyes wide, claps a hand over his mouth. In this moment the first firework sets off, and as it shoots upwards the water explodes in shards of glass, and in that second of green light they both see with clarity: Momo’s hand, Kaidoh’s hand, the blades of grass that ruffle prudently between fingers. Ryoma’s not watching the fireworks, but after a while even he reclines his head back to the sky, in boredom or respect. His smirk is just beginning to thaw when Eiji raises the camera, and on the next blinding crackle of light he clicks. The flash is engulfed, the shutter silenced, Echizen’s smile caught in the developing frame. Eiji feels like he understands his own power then, and the extent of it, and the extent of it when he’s Kikumaru of Seigaku. Ryoma hasn’t left, but he soon will. Eiji has been wanting to give him things he isn’t able to on his own.

A few seconds of silence marks the beginning of the countdown. Ryoma lies back on the grass, closes his eyes with a sated smile. Eiji wants to tickle him awake, but the moment feels good just like this. He looks down to the time on his phone, and when he looks back up Oishi is there, and Tezuka is there, and Kawamura, Inui. Fuji waves across the river, and Momo chuckles, Kaidoh motions back. Ryoma opens his eyes to their faces hovering under the sky and tilts his cap. In the color bursts, their jerseys are no longer white and red and blue. They count from ten to one together, and the sky is washed in gold.

Eiji yanks the cap off Ryoma’s face, but his devious hand stops when Ryoma frantically shoves, and he catches his eyes wet at the rims. It takes him just a blip to understand. He winks down at the terror-stricken face.

"For tonight, you’re our present!"

Eiji pulls Echizen off the wet grass, tackles him from behind, and presents him to the team covering his face with his hands.

"Peekaboo, Ochibi." He whispers.

His fingers take the wetness as they glide past, and when Ryoma next opens his eyes he’s no longer afraid of being seen, but Eiji understands, and for the first time that night he feels oddly proud. Ryoma has his hair petted and cheeks squished, and when he gets a moment to turn and mumble a shy thank you Eiji feels his heart bloom. That was all he wanted all along, he supposes. A moment in time to be remembered as something, someone that had made Echizen happy, as a senpai, a team mate, a friend, someone who’d become equally important to the little wanderer as he now was to them. He breaks into a big, silly grin, thinking about it. It was all easier than he imagined.

By the edge of the river, Momo kneels with a hand in the water, and Kaidoh stands behind him shouting, rebuking his lunacy. Something exchanged strikes a chord, and Momo gets his ass kicked into the freezing river, but not before latching onto Kaidoh’s ankle, and they plummet one by one like artillery. They break the surface grappling, Oishi runs over, crying out in panic. Echizen’s pulling on Inui’s sleeve, and Eiji thinks the glint in his eye is probably not good. Fuji catches the scene with Eiji’s camera, Takashi’s already kicking off his shoes, and Tezuka’s talking to the couple behind them, apologizing for borrowing their towel with a familiar bow and resignation.

This is all you’re permitted to time-freeze, Eiji tells himself. Tonight, right here is where he’d like to stay, and he will let himself stay until the sparks of the fireworks break off into the darkness like words off a filled page, and a new sun calls for the hot-blooded youth to rub their eyes to a clear future. Tomorrow, the story will go on.

They are the writers, these children. Eiji thinks they’re all damn good at it.


End file.
